I didn't think the legendary Dirty Pages in The Fountainhead were all that hot.

I read Fanny Hill for academic purposes. No, seriously.

As a grad student in history, I was going to write a seminar paper on popular attitudes toward pornography. Focused on FH. IIRC, wall to wall sex, described in baroque terms that didn't work right to the modern mind.

Actually, FH has a place in literary history. It (along with Tom Jones) is a prime example of the backlash against the first novels, which were very moral and taught girls to keep their honors so they could sell their virginities to the highest bidder. FH and TJ set that trope on its ear -- with heroes who ended well even though they didn't lead the most virtuous lives before marriage.

As Cindy said, Peyton Place is less shocking now than it was in its day simply because things that Simply Weren't Discussed back then now appear on Jerry Springer every day. But it's still a fun beach read. Ditto Forever Amber (the Publishing Scandal of 1944) and Valley of the Dolls.

PP was also made into a fun trashy movie starring Lana Turner. VotD was made into a movie that's a camp classic for reasons that escape me.

described in baroque terms that didn't work right to the modern mind.

Are you implying that a nine-year old Jamaican who couldn't even make sense of the pictures in Emmanuelle (it was the novelisation of the movie) might not get it?

Yeah, such was my conceit. I even started the Happy Hooker and got bored. Anything more subtle than Hustler was lost on me.

I can't stand DHL, but I don't know if "dated" is the word I'd use...that would apply that there was a time when his pseudo-profundities weren't completely ridiculous.

I can't stand DHL, but I don't know if "dated" is the word I'd use...that would apply that there was a time when his pseudo-profundities weren't completely ridiculous.

See, you just need to read him with bon bons in a bubble bath.

And then laugh and laugh and laugh and pat him on the head.

I'll remember that, Plei!

(And obviously I meant "imply", not "apply".)

I didn't read literature for porn. I read porn!

Speaking of The Happy Hooker, I shoplifted The Happy Hooker Goes Around the World In A Daze when I was 12, which was about her hitting sex clubs worldwide. I had that damn thang memorized, and remember staying up late to catch her on The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder.

I can never read DHL again after a memorable seminar in which we noticed his total obsession with the physical sensations of wearing women's clothes. Ever since I read his books and all I see is garter garter garter.

I pulled Anais Nin off my mother's bookshelves when I was a teenager, having vaguely heard of the name but I didn't know where. I remember reading her stories and in many cases being like, "I bet that isn't physically possible."

I am reading I Married a Dead Man by Cornell Woolrich right now. It's the exact same plot as teh Ricki Lake movie Mrs. Winterbourne, except not nice at all! It's hilarious in its hysteria!

I'm not much of a DHL fan, either. He seems kinda like Hesse to me, all full of (as Angus said) self-seriousness and revelations that aren't.

Here's Charles Taylor's response in Salon to that NYT Andrew Solomon article about the death of literacy.